The other day I witnessed a traffic altercation. A guy driving a minivan was approaching an intersection when another guy in a Mini turned left illegally in front of the minivan. It was a no-danger, slow-speed event in an urban neighborhood. The cars were probably twenty feet from each other. But the minivan driver just had to lay on the horn. And then hold it for awhile.
They should just stop making minivans. Or barring that, make it illegal for men to drive them. If a guy’s sense of manhood is already challenged, and you stick him in one of those things, it’s just too much. It’s bound to get ugly.
I long for the day one of these honkers glares through his (or her) windshield and sees their boss staring back from the targeted car. Bye-bye jobbie!
Yes, horns have become like the Comment section on news websites – a tool for personal anger expression. We should do something about them. And now that cars are coming out with collision-avoidance sensors that can gauge distance, we have a great opportunity. Here’s what we could do:
Give every driver two “free” honks per month. Unless you’re a crappy driver, that should be enough for genuine emergencies. And when you unleash the third honk that month, the distance-gauging computer kicks in, acting like a judge. It determines whether or not the situation is worthy of a honk.
And if it’s not, the computer fries all the electrical components in your car.
This should be enough incentive to get people to find another way to deal with their anger. Donuts always seem to work for me.
Donuts make everything better.
I just want you to know that this is a man thing because when I was searching for pics for “men driving vans” all that came up was a van submerged in water. Scary, huh?!
Donuts work for me too but it’s such a waste throwing them at drivers!
Instead of limiting the number of horn activations, you could just change the sound after x number of uses to a “Prissy girly-mon” sound that a macho guy would never use without embarrassment.
Actually, we COULD start using “ringtones” for our car horns, so we could more personalize our intent.